Thanks for supporting Tonto Press in 2006. You can read about what we got up to over the year here.
Stu from Tonto gets to know the dog
The winning team, clearly delighted with their Geordie hamper
Ah... Iain Banks. This book was first published in 1994 and went straight on my Christmas present list. I hadn't read any of his work for a while and thought I'd pick this book up again after discussing it on Tonto's Creative Writing course over the summer. Banks is an absolute master - This book is a fine example of how to switch point of view from first person to second person and also one of the most unsettling openings to a novel you'll read in a long time. I prefer to see his books in the old black and white covers, although with this version, you can pick it up for one pence! That's right... a single English penny! Complicity is a stunting exploration of the morality of greed, corruption and violence, venturing fearlessly into the darker recesses of human purpose. Add to that some sex, mystery, S&M, computery stuff, some more corruption and murder and you're back in the familiar world of Iain Banks.
Music - Hit Parade by Paul Weller
All the die hard fans have been complaining about this box set. It hasn't got any demos, alternative versions or unreleased tracks on it. So what? It's a four disc set of practically everything Weller has done from The Jam to The Style Council to the Paul Weller Movement and plain old Paul Weller.
Weller is more popular now than he's ever been, attracting a whole new generation of listeners through his influence over all these new indie kid guitar bands and maybe this set is just what a new listener needs. It's just a shame he invited some of them on stage at the BBC Electric Proms recently to murder some of his most dearly-held classic tunes. If you're one of the die hards... you know you'll buy it at some point, even if it's just for the booklet included. Hit Parade could be sub-headed: Every decent Weller track you need without having to buy albums or find and download off the net.
Film - Yellow Submarine by The Beatles
It'll cost you an arm and a leg on Amazon, but every household should have one.
Book: Twelve Grand Jonathan Rendall
Rendall, a boxing writer, was handed a £12,000 advance and told to gamble it and write up the results. But things didn't go to plan, and what starts as an account of a humorous gambling journey turns into a drink-addled tale of personal hell. It's highly original, brutally honest, and brilliantly written - Rendall's occasional columns on boxing, gambling and drinking in various broadsheets are always worth reading regardless of your interest in the subject matter. Subtitled 'The Gambler As Hero', the book inspired a Channel 4 series, which was also excellent and deserves a repeat on More4. You can get Twelve Grand for as little as 50p here. And you can read his brilliant recent Observer piece on tracking down his birth mother here.
CD: Give Up The Postal Service
Combining the melodic pop sensibilities of (Death Cab For Cutie's) Ben Gibbard and the electronic beats and twiddlings of (Dntel's) Jimmy Tamborello, The Postal Service is a side project that is much better than either musician's day job. I normally have an aversion to 'electronic' music, but this is something special - gems of pop songs dipped in shiny beats. Think Technique-era New Order polished up for the noughties and you're partway there. As a taster, you can see Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess's excellent video for cheery nuclear holocaust anthem We Will Become Silhouettes here. You can get Give Up here.
DVD: A Room For Romeo Brass
This Shane Meadows movie starts off with twelve year-olds Romeo and Gavin befriending grown-up loner Morell (Paddy Considine), and for the first act it could easily be an old Children's Film Foundation picture. But everything changes when Morell, obsessed with Romeo's sister, becomes unpredictable and violent. The film then revolves around a brilliantly edgy and genuinely terrifying performance from Considine - certainly living up to his reputation as a British De Niro. His final confrontation with Gavin's dad is one of the scariest and most intense movie scenes I can remember. Morell is a psychopath, but in Considine's hands you can't help feeling sorry for him. You can get the DVD for just £4.97 here.
The Burglar’s Dog is getting heaps of publicity in the run-up to officially hitting the shops. We could (and will, someday) rant and rave about the difficulties of becoming a ‘new’ and, God forbid, so-called ‘local’ publisher, so having the backing of a major seller in our hometown is a BIG deal.
We actually put out a book I had written, The Unofficial Football World Championships, to test the water in terms of sales and distribution, and subsequent titles have benefitted from that. We've had some success, getting our books stocked by the UK's largest wholesaler, becoming a Waterstone's 'approved retailer', and also being stocked, at least regionally, by Asda, Blackwell's, Bookworld, Borders, Fenwick, HMV, and in independent stores. But we've also come up against a fair few brick walls, most notably at one of the country's biggest bookseller, WHSmith. We've had three laughable encounters with that chain's local book buyers which left us (and, to be fair, WHSmith head office) extremely frustrated. The full details of the encounters are probably best left for another time, but the crux of the problem was that none of the local book buyers knew how to use Smith's ordering system, even though it had been in use for some months. So unfortunately our books aren't currently stocked by WHSmith, although we live in hope. I imagine if we coughed up the £50,000 Smiths are demanding from publishers to place books on their Christmas recommended list we'd have had more luck. Unfortunately, that seems to be indicative of the incentive-based road that many retailers are heading down.
Of course our books can be ordered from Smiths, or any 'bricks and mortar' store, but we'd much rather see them on the shelves. Online sales are much easier to navigate. Amazon in particular is a level playing field for publishers - they don't really care if you're HarperCollins or Tonto Press as long as your book sells.
What all of this is leading up to is that we've just sent our new Autumn / Winter catalogue out to just about every major bookshop in the country. You can see a PDF of it here. As a folded leaflet it doesn't quite compare to an Argos catalogue, but we think it looks pretty good thanks to the use of Garen Ewing's Burglar's Dog artwork. Let us know what you think.
Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried published in 1991 by Flamingio.
Larry Page Orchestra's Lounge With Larry. He is described as an influential manager and producer during the British Invasion, Larry (born Lenny Davis) did a lot for the Kinks in their early career, although he was muscled out of the picture after their first couple of years of success. He had a lengthier relationship with the Troggs, whom he produced in the 1966-68 period that yielded their big hits. I don't go anywhere without Larry Page tunes these days. Best listened to in a smoking jacket and cravat, this is one for the modern English gentlemen out there - perfect for any occasion.
The Descent (2 disc special edition) by Neil Marshall is amazing. Neil's second feature film has a 4-star rating on Amazon where 93 people took the time to review it. With Doomsday on the way, Neil is the hottest new director in the UK at the moment. The film stars Tonto Press' mate Craig Conway, reader of The Last Smoker at the launch of the Short Stories Anthology. This special edition is worth buying just for seeing Craig's dance in the extras. Amazon are doing a deal where you can buy this and Wolf Creek in one go.
Book: The Ice at the Bottom of the World Mark Richard
I recommended this little book of short stories during our first Tonto creative writing course, and I'm happy to do so again today. Richards is the most dynamic writer I've ever encountered - his language and description are a delight to read. He's from Louisiana, and his stories are set in balmy bayous populated with an assortment of fascinating low-lifes. Opener 'Strays' is a fantastic introduction to Richard unique, addictive style, and 'Her Favourite Story' is as good an example of a short story as you're ever likely to see. The collection was published in 1990 (it won the 1990 Ernest Hemingway Award) and is now out of print, but, at the time of writing, Amazon's Marketplace has a few second hand copies in stock for less than a fiver. We'll be linking to all of our recommended picks at Amazon to make it easy to get hold of them. Get The Ice At The Bottom Of The World here.
CD: Nashville Josh Rouse
Josh Rouse is a gem of a singer/songwriter, and Nashville, his last-but-one CD, is probably the best introduction to his talents. A melodic treat of country-tinged classic pop songs, its a CD I've still got in heavy rotation more than two years after its release. If you want to sample a track on iTunes, try It's The Nighttime. Josh regularly visits Tonto's part of the world and is well worth seeing live. And if you like Nashville, Josh's Subtitulo, 1972, and Under Cold Blue Stars are also essential purchases. Get Nashville here.
DVD: The Wire Season One
A TV show, you say? But isn't all TV rubbish? Not when it's made by HBO it isn't. The US cable channel has already brought us The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, The Larry Sanders Show, Band of Brothers, and Ricky Gervais's Extras, but I'm here to tell you that The Wire might just be the best of the lot. A dense, uncompromising crime drama, The Wire tells the story of Baltimore's drug trade through the dual viewpoints of the police and the dealers. It's brilliantly written - almost novelistic in style - and the vast cast of characters are brilliantly realised and portrayed. If the ensemble cast has any stars, they're both British - Dominic West as flawed detective Jimmy McNulty, and Idris Elba as charismatic drug lieutenant Stringer Bell. I could go on all day about how good The Wire is, but suffice to say every single episode is better than any movie I've seen in the last two or three years. You need to start with Season One, but Seasons Two and Three are even better. Amazon are currently doing Seasons One and Two for an amazing £24.97 each - that's less than two quid an episode! You can also rent it using the same link. Get The Wire Season One here.
Phil aka Patrick Hoffmann playing Dan in Gorgeous Avatar
More thanks to all those who Paul already mentioned, and no thanks to all those friends who said they'd come along and then stayed in because of a bit of rain.
Well. There's my first Blog. Bye for now.
*Earlier in the day I plugged the launch on BBC Radio Newcastle, and they put together a nice montage of voiced extracts from "Wor Al". Listen to it here (mp3, right click to "save as"). The full interview is on our media page.
Off now to make final preparations for the big "Wor Al" book launch, details of which are here. We'll post pics and reports from the launch here soon.
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